Steel Sky (38 page)

Under a new government program, the unemployed could sell their extra time, profit from their idle hours. To most of them it seemed ideal: they smiled lazily as the computers at Central Time Standard advanced their chronometers by months, years or decades. What no one remembered was that the government had earlier passed a law requiring the termination of all persons over seventy. It had seemed like a good idea for our overpopulated, enclosed society. Now, seeing hapless young vagrants shot down in the streets when their chronometers reached seventy, some people began to have doubts.

A small, encrypted news program began to circulate on the lower decks. It was tawdry and incendiary, but no attempt was made to interfere with it. Ours was still a constitutional technocracy, guaranteeing freedom of speech to all.

“
Citizens! You may have wondered why the government has instituted the Chronometric Program. Why take time from one worker and redistribute it to another? Why not simply take money as governments have always done and pay the other employees to work longer? The answer is simple: conditioned dependency. Before money was invented there was no need for bankers. Before the law, there was no need for lawyers. Before the Chronometric Program there was no need for Central Time Standard. Now Central Time is indispensable. We are completely in their control from the hour of our births to the instant of our deaths. Our time has run out.”

That was from the third program. This from the fifth:

“
Citizens! You have stood by docilely as the tyrants took away our most precious possessions: your moments of reflection, your times of tenderness. You have said nothing. Perhaps this is because you did not think it could get worse. I want you to know that it can get worse, and it will. Government employees are being given more real time per chronometric hour so they can get more work done, but in return they are demanding more pay for each chronometric hour. And they are getting it. Some of you have felt the first effects; you are being paid more per hour and expected to do more work per hour. This cancerous situation is spreading to all jobs, but you do not see what it signifies: chronoinflation. The value of our time is decreasing. The government’s expectation of your work per chronometric hour will keep rising and eating away at your free time. Citizens, the extra compensation is not worth the extra labor. But even if it were, it would still not be worth the plunder of your time, which despite this government’s assessment, is beyond price!”

The essay on chronoinflation sent a palpable wave though the workers. In some areas riots erupted. Workers went on strike in all sectors. Workers reported to their jobs but refused to work, attempting to turn their work time back into leisure time. The government, however, seemed to have been expecting the situation. Government officials simply locked the workers in their factories and severed all communications. The workers were left helpless, watching their free time mercilessly tick away on their chronometers. Most of the strikers gave up in less than a day.

For the more persistent cases, the government called in the strike-breakers. Casualties were high.

The editor of the news program was traced, arrested, and taken to Central Time Standard. In the editor’s apartment, the notes for the next issue were found. I saw them before they were impounded. They described what the editor thought would be the next step in the chronometric situation: chronoinflation would devalue the hours Central Time Standard had stockpiled. Central Time would try to raise the value back up by making time scarcer. It would make time scarcer by raising the Time Tax again. Drastically. It made me think.

The next day, I saw the editor in a crowd on Deck Three. Surely they wouldn’t put her back on the street so quickly, I thought. I moved closer to be sure. It was her, and she noticed I was looking at her.

She lifted her arm in explanation. Her chronometer was pulsing like a heartbeat, the simulated sunrises and sunsets passing in seconds. Central Time had tried and sentenced her. She was
doing time
. Already most of her seventy years had been used up.

Perhaps Central had drugged her, or perhaps the stress was simply too much for her, but she looked as old as her chronometer said she was.

She turned and — still without a word — disappeared into the crowd.

I quit my job at Central Time Standard the next day.

MISSING

“Edward, I’m so glad to see you again.”

Edward is standing on the ledge just inside the door to Image’s chamber. The chair on the articulated beam floats toward him. The armrest rises to let him sit.

“I’ll stand, thank you,” Edward says. “I won’t be staying long.”

“Please sit. I worry that you’ll fall.”

“You always worry. You worry too much.”

“You won’t worry for yourself, Edward, so I have to worry for you.”

“It isn’t necessary,” he says, but he climbs into the chair anyway.

As it floats back to the center of the chamber, the lights begin to dim. “Leave the lights on,” he says. “I don’t need it dark anymore.”

“Very well.” The chair comes to rest. Fine beams of light focus on his pulse points, but Edward scowls and they disappear again. “How are you, Edward? How is your wound?”

“Completely healed. As if it was never there.”

“That’s wonderful. I was very concerned about you, when you were down on the sublevels where I couldn’t see you. I missed our conversations.”

Edward shifts in the chair, uncomfortable with where this discussion is heading, but determined to see it through. “I don’t need to come here anymore, Image. Everything is going just the way I want it to. I don’t need your help anymore.”

“You’re a healthy adult, Edward; I can’t force you to talk to me. But I hope you continue to visit. I think I can still help you.”

“I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Really, I do. But things have changed.”

“What things?”

“You know. You’ve seen her.”

“Yes.”

Despite himself, Edward cannot help asking, “What do you think of her?”

“She is an attractive woman with many admirable qualities.”

“You think she’s not good enough,” Edward says, disgusted. “I don’t know why I asked you, anyway. I don’t care what you think.”

“It’s not my place to judge anyone, Edward. Are you still having nightmares?”

“Sometimes. Not as bad as before.”

“You’re finding it easier to kill, aren’t you?”

Edward leans back in the chair. He can almost hear the Hypogeum humming around him. “I’m doing what needs to be done. You know that.”

“I do. I also know that you must be diligent. If you ever come to enjoy the killing, you will become no better than a common thug.”

Edward shakes his head. “You know, Image, there are times when you sound exactly like my mother.”

“Do not indulge that fantasy, Edward. I am unlike anyone or anything you have ever known. Except, perhaps, for the Hypogeum itself.”

QUIET

“Good morning, Amarantha.”

A long pause. The only sound in the room is the hiss of air blowing through the register.

“Good morning, Amarantha,” the subroutine says again, a little louder than before.

Another pause, shorter this time.

“Good morning, Amarantha. Good morning, Amarantha. Good morning, Amarantha. Good morning, Amarantha.”

Amarantha raises her head. “All right, all right,” she says, wiping the sand out of her eyes. “I’m awake. Shut up.”

She slips out of bed carefully, so as not to disturb Cadell. She takes a shower and brushes her teeth, then slips back into bed. One of the customs she and Cadell have acquired in their time together is that she should wake up first, giving him a chance to get a little more sleep, and then that she should gently wake him.

She moves close to him and leans over. She kisses his forehead. She is struck abruptly by Cadell’s scent, or rather by the lack of it. She has become used to his musky but clean scent, better than any cologne. But this morning it is absent. His smell is like that of a newly washed baby, pleasant but indistinct. A chill runs down her spine.

“Cadell,” she whispers into his ear. “Cadell, it’s time to get up.”

She kisses him and calls his name again. Slowly, he turns his head and opens his eyes. As he sees her, his eyes light up. His smile is an amazing thing, pure and unrestrained. She cannot help but smile in return.

“Oh, thank Koba you’re feeling better,” she says. “You look great, sweetheart. I can never understand how you always look so good first thing in the morning, without even combing your hair.”

He continues to smile, saying nothing. The silence lasts a long time.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asks, unable to control the edge of fear creeping into her voice. “How do you feel?”

The smile remains, but his eyes crinkle in confusion, frightened by her inquisitiveness.

“Please, sweetheart,” she says. “Please tell me you’re better now.”

His smile shrivels and disappears. His mouth opens in a small, soundless cry of confusion.

“Oh, no,” Amarantha whispers. “Oh, no.”

His lip quivers, as if he is about to cry. Quickly, Amarantha puts her arms around him and pulls him close. “Don’t cry,” she says, stroking his hair. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, sweetheart. Please don’t cry.”

At the touch of her hand, his body relaxes. He snuggles up against her. Amarantha holds him tight, stroking his hair. “It’s all right,” she whispers. “It’s all right.”

THE MESSAGE

Orel watches the Rats feed, intrigued by the evidence of a social hierarchy among them.

He has crawled out of the pit, lying flat on his stomach, with the magnification on the mangled sonar helmet set to maximum. One of the circuit boards has broken, so that only the left half of the goggles works, and of course he does not dare activate the head lamps, but he can still watch his captors and study their behavior.

The Rats are still stripping Thraso’s carcass. The biggest muscles are gone, presumably taken by the Rats at the top of the hierarchy, but there is plenty of meat left, and the biggest Rats are crowded round Thraso’s arms and legs, cutting with their flint knives. The smaller or younger Rats circle anxiously. Occasionally one darts in, trying to steal a bit of meat. The larger Rats shriek and chase it away. If it is persistent, the larger Rats will beat the smaller one until it leaves.

Throughout the cave, the Rats are in restless motion, excited by the smell of blood. One Rat separates from the confusion. Spying Orel’s head peeking out of the pit, it lopes toward him. It moves quickly and silently, padding on calloused feet. From a strip of cloth around its thigh it pulls a stone dagger.

Orel stays where he is, worried that any sudden movement on his part might only excite the Rats more. Besides, there is no place for him to run.

Suddenly another Rat, larger than the first, jumps on it. It strikes the smaller Rat fiercely in the head. The small Rat immediately drops to a protective position, its knees against its chest, its arms over its head. The big one — which Orel can now see is a female — hits the smaller a few more times, then pulls it to its feet.

What follows next is extraordinary, and Orel considers how fortunate he is that these Rats are close enough and standing at the right angle so that he can recognize the significance of their behavior. The female positions the male so they are facing one another, with their chests about a half-meter apart. The female places her palm over the male’s heart and holds it there for a moment. She then makes a quick side-to-side motion with her hand, brushing it back and forth across the male’s chest. She pulls her hand back and, with a quick twisting motion, pushes two fingertips against the stomach of the other, just under the rib cage.

With sudden clarity, Orel “reads” the message:
— You — No — Kill —

They have a language after all.

The female now takes the male’s hand and places the palm against her heart.
— I —
She then repeats the stabbing motion.
— Kill —
Finally, she makes a complex motion with both hands touching the male’s chest. Orel cannot make it out.
— I — Kill —
Later, perhaps? —
I — Kill —
because I am superior — ?

The smaller Rat hangs its head and shuffles away, chastised. The female casts a quick, sharp glance at Orel, then returns to the crowd. The possessiveness of her gaze is unmistakable.

Intelligent,
Orel thinks.
No question about it.

WHERE LIFE BEGINS

The man was careless and lost a finger in the big machinery. He fainted from the pain, and for a long time nobody noticed him lying on the floor. The wound has had time to fester.